sunflowers
the days without customers pass by quicker than the hectic crazy days. as could probably be evidenced by how unprepared I am at closing time on Mondays. Today was a good day. Paige is spending the rest of the week house/cat sitting for her mom in Melrose. I asked where that is, and unluckily it's not on my mom's route, which would have been Mister Rogers Quaint Perfect. Paige did invite me to spend time with her in Melrose as a writing retreat but I need to be alone for a bit; I've had so much social interaction in the past week between her visits three days in a row and Viola's visit on Saturday and my parents' visit yesterday. Paige also asked if I like surprises.
There's a lot of stories about Yauch that are sprinkled in the Beastie Boys Book, and I send notable ones to her, but one that resonated with what we see as us is when, after the Licensed to Ill tour/split-up, Adam got a big package in the mail from Yauch. He unpacked it to find a smaller box inside, and a smaller inside that, and inside that and that and then there was a ziploc baggie of coffee grinds. Not coffee beans--coffee grinds. And inside that was a casette demo from his band Brooklyn.
Today Paige drove to Hygge with sunflowers in a glass pasta sauce jar for me. Just because it's the start of my weekend. Because I made a passing comment about how it's August and it's time for the sunflowers and I love them. I have to amp my game UP. She's out here boomboxing In Your Eyes and slipping notes under my bedroom door and jarring me sunflowers!! I gotta do some crazy Yauch shit and push some boundaries! We could mail/pass a book back and forth, chapter by chapter, adding notes and highlighting parts. We could mail a journal to each other and add shit to that. Two journals! One for art collective absurdities and one for questions! Mail her a fake catalog or magazine I make up and design. Leave chalk drawings in front of her HOUSE. (ORANGE HEARTS) Hide something in a tree in the dog park for her. If there are any trees there.
She also said she wants to hire me to take updated photos for her website. She's suggested this in the past and I am so down, but this time, she said she wants to pay me. I said twenty five, "unacceptable" thirty five "absolutely not. one hundred minimum. MINIMUM." She said she wants to give me a couple hundred dollars specifically so I can take the day off of work, not even to take pictures on that day, but she wants me to have enough funds to not work for a day. She said hourly? She said by picture? I was about to reply to try to figure out a way this could not be so crazy when I was interrupted by a pickup truck pulling into our driveway, driven by LAURA in a wifebeater and reflective SHADES. Georgia was in the passenger seat, and a single box of cat litter was in the truck bed.
"WHY DO YOU HAVE A TRUCK?"
"It costs $70 to rent a zipcar for a day-
Paige, in the distance behind me "yuck"
"But it costs thirty bucks to rent a UHAUL for a day."
We climbed onto the porch and into the truck bed and talked about naming ourselves and our kids and Jewish stuff and before the summer is up we're going to picnic in the truck bed somewhere, anywhere. ("you KNOW my history with parties in UHAUL trucks I need this to HAPPEN.")